At present for this title, we are merely going by a game title which was name dropped in a demo called Funitrax Banzai by Henrik Buus Jensen. In the greetings page, Henrik greets those who are working on the game Trazers, as he was composing the music for it. Sadly there is nothing in HVSC under Henrik’s directory, so we know very little about this game.
Was it ever started? What sort of game was it?
Well, we managed to get hold of Henrik Buus Jensen, who tells GTW64 that his friend Henning Andersen (coder) and big brother, Claus Buus Jensen (graphics) were involved in developing the game. He suggested that Lars Balker Rasmussen may have been involved, but Lars confirms that he wasn’t.
Henning got in touch in 2016 and described the game as a bit like Ocean’s Parallax, with multi-scrolling. It would have had a large play area that you could fly around. Unfortunately the game play elements could not be recalled.
Sadly it was confirmed that he no longer had anything of the game, so its likely this one could be lost for good.
Anonymous Contributor got in touch to say that the game seems to have changed its name sometime during late 1987, although to what is not clear (source).
More details now directly from Anonymous Contributor:
According to the discussion, the game Trazers is mentioned in two different demos, made by Henrik Buus Jensen, his brother Claus and Henning, i.e. the people behind Trazers.
1) In the demo Keyboarder, released in 1987, Henrik writes the scroll text and reveals that him, Henning and Claus are working on a game called Trazers.
https://csdb.dk/release/?id=
“Look out for a new Danish game called ‘Trazers’, a really brill game by Henning and Claus. The music is ofcourse done by me [implying Henrik, who writes the scrolltext]”
Now for the name change:
2) The demo ‘Music for masses’, by Triton Technology (Henrik, Claus and Henning) and released in November 1987 offers this bit:
https://csdb.dk/release/?id=
“Our game has changed name, but because a little lamer called himself ‘Trazer’ we won’t reveal the new name so another lamer can’t get himself a great name.”
This implies that Trazer has changed name due to the name being taken by an independent programmer, but the new game name stays a secret. So maybe Trazer isn’t the name to look for when searching for remains of this game.
3) Related – Is it possibly even a sequel to Unitrax?
This is more speculative. Just wanted to point out a few interesting tidbits that may relate Trazers to Unitrax in more ways than just the musician.
Henrik Buus Jensen also made the music for another Danish game called Unitrax. This game was released in 1988, but was initially slated for a January 1987 release (according to the Kele Line news release preserved in several GTW entries).
https://www.lemon64.com/game/
Unitrax is occasionally mentioned on GTW.
In the demo mentioned in this entry, Henrik plays around with the Unitrax game title. First of all, the demo is called “Funitrax Banzai”. Notice the “Unitrax” in there? Also, the demo contains a “Theme Unitrax metal mix”:
https://csdb.dk/release/?id=
https://deepsid.chordian.net/?
With the demo being from sometime around 1987, and Unitrax originally slated for a January 1987 release, it is possible that Henrik had recently finished the music for Unitrax and was now doing remixes of it, just for fun. Or putting leftover music out there just to get it played. Not uncommon in those days.
How does this relate to Trazers?
According to this entry, Henning describes Trazers as “a bit like Ocean’s Parallax, with multi-scrolling. It would have had a large play area that you could fly around.”
Well, Unitrax has exactly that, although the player moves in lanes instead of freely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
The similarity is also noted in this May 1988 review (calling Unitrax “poor man’s Parallax”):
https://amr.abime.net/review_
Could Trazers have been inspired by Unitrax? Possibly, although multi-directional scrollers were all the rage on the C64 back then. But Henrik drops an additional tidbit:
In this entry, Henrik mentions Claus and Henning, but more people seem to have been involved. Henrik, not directly involved in development, doesn’t seem entirely sure, but mentions a Lars Balker Rasmussen, who claims not to be involved.
But what if Henrik was right about the first name? Unitrax was programmed by another Lars, namely Lars Hasselbalch (not’ Hasselbach’ as gb64 and lemon64 entries claim. See Unitrax title screen or Mobygames for correct spelling) – and Nikolaj Pagh, two Kele Line employees who also made the first Kele Line game “Zyrons escape” in 1986:
https://www.mobygames.com/
Let’s say Henrik vaguely remembers a Lars being involved in Trazers, with a surname sounding something like “Balk”. “Lars Balker” and “Lars Hasselbalch” sound somewhat similar (in Scandinavian languages, ‘ch’ could just as easily be pronounced as ‘k’) and the two could very well be mixed up after 30 years, especially if you had not been in touch with either person since then.
This would mean that Lars Hasselbalch – whom Henrik knew via Unitrax – was perhaps involved in Trazers too in some way. And with Trazers having an almost identical gameplay premise as Unitrax, Lars, if involved, may have reused the engine. But that’s as far as this inquiry can go.
Contributions: Henrik Buus Jensen, Lars Balker Rasmussen, Henning Andersen, Anonymous Contributor
Supporting content
Update history
- 15/06/26 – Some great details from Anonymous Contributor regarding the name and possible leads/links.
- 06/10/16 – Coder speaks a bit about the game.
